Guns, Guns, Guns.
POSTED BY: FREMDFIRMA
UPDATED: Monday, June 30, 2025 05:56
VIEWED: 46757
PAGE 42 of 44
Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I submit that if we as a nation trusted our government more we'd be able to pass anti-gun laws like we used to. (It's kind of a tautology, ain'it?) But who cares about that? The truth is, if our government were to start being trustworthy tomorrow, we'd cut down on the number of mass murders in the first place. 'Cause as long as our government's policies reflect a belief that social change issues from the barrel of a gun, that force of arms (i.e.: "or else" i.e.: laws) is what we need to make the world a better place, INDIVIDUALS WILL FOLLOW THAT EXAMPLE. If our government were to really stop the fucking torture, and cut military spending FOR REAL, and stop denying that we kill the weak and defenseless with every strike, then our citizens would follow suit and there would be a real reduction in gun violence in this country.
How is it that people don't make that connection? How is it that we think that if we just take guns away from "the right people," that this problem will go away? It's absurd and it's childish and it's never gonna work anyway.
Again...
Quote:
“As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice, but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educator’s threat and by the father’s rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman’s club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies.”
Boris Sidis, from “A lecture on the abuse of the fear instinct in early education” in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1919.
There's also the foolishness of blaming a tool instead of holding the user accountable, or collective punishment against others who have such a tool because someone else misused it and the assumption that they MIGHT.
So long as Force and Fear are how humans are taught to deal with each other, all the laws in the world won't budge this problem an iota.
-Frem
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Siggy:
Quote:
And blah blah blah... Yanno, I researched to 2A too. That bit about well-regulated militias was not put in there for you, the Supreme Court, and all gun-nuts to ignore, and when the Supreme Court decided that the 2A protected individual right to own a gun, you all got handed a nice, juicy, totally unwarranted kiss on the ass. The right to own guns belongs with the STATES. Because it was the STATES RIGHTS the FF were protecting, not yours.
I disagree, passionately - I have read our Founders discussions on the topic quite extensively, repeatedly pointed out or quoted them, even pointed out specifically where Madison offers an outright assumption of a citizenry possessing their own arms, it was assumed to the same degree we "assume" another person has a right to wear clothing.
They said what they said, and were quite verbose and explicit in their meaning, just because you do not like it, refuse to accept it, makes it no less a fact.
Niki:
Quote:
Frem, that really pisses me off. I mean seriously! That you lump me in with "y'all" makes smoke come out my ears. I have every fucking right in the WORLD to want to see some reasonable restrictions on guns without it meaning I want to ban them all. That is a stupid, idiotic stance to take, I expect better from you. I have NO desire to see all guns banned, whatsoever, can we get clear about that? And I'm certainly not "lying" about anything. I've been very clear, I believe, in what I'd like to see:
Yes you have, it does not however mean I believe you, nor do I trust that once that first inch gets taken, that others will not rush to infringe further, especially when they've stated as much publicly and often, or that such "Reasonable Restrictions" won't be expanded and misused every bit as much as they have in respect to the Fourth Amendment.
I've no intent to give that inch, sorry - while YOU may have no such intention, opening the door and wedging it open for those who do carries little distinction from it, in my eyes.
I am also perplexed at your own reaction to say, the notion of banning folks who suffer from any kind of mental illness from this right, suddenly it became all sorts of personal, yes ?
Think about that one for a minute, and you might understand my ire.
In General:
You're angry at me for standing here and saying "No" to your efforts, wishes and intentions to deliberately infringe upon a Constitution Right, and having the gall to be annoyed with you about it, suspicious of your motives, and wary of the potential for abuse such measures may carry.
Perhaps seeing the same people who decry the evil, untrustworthy government for stomping all over the Fourth and First Amendments, while simultaneously calling for the benevolent, reliable government to stomp on the Second has made me a little skeptical.
The answer is still "No."
-Frem
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TONY- thank you, kind sir, for the info! If I had to scroll thru this entire thread, I would have gone crazier than I already am.
FREM
Quote:There is no such thing as a complete right to free speech- you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, and so forth. There is no such thing as a complete right to privacy... if you know of an immediate threat by someone, even if you're their doctor, you have to report it. I can give you a number of examples unrestricted "rights" could cause great harm to others. The 2A is no different... you cannot stand on the idea that the amendments grant complete, unfettered right to damage others and you can't claim the same thing for the 2A.
Perhaps seeing the same people who decry the evil, untrustworthy government for stomping all over the Fourth and First Amendments, while simultaneously calling for the benevolent, reliable government to stomp on the Second has made me a little skeptical.
As a practical matter, ALL of our rights were granted to be able to change and (if necessary) overhrow the government. The right to free speech? To disagree with the government. The right to privacy and a fair trial? So people couldn't be arrested for "political" crimes. Free association? To be able to collectively control one's political destiny thru organization.
As a PRACTICAL matter, by the time you really should be thinking about revolution, the government has already abrogated those rights anyway, and whining That's not FAIR! isn't going to work. Again, strictly practically-speaking, a frank discussion of the role of gun ownership in prodding government would more than likely interest either the FBI or the NSA. But IMHO, you would need such numerically extensive cooperation in order to make your "sidearms" effective against superior armaments, if you had THAT level of communication and cooperation there would be any number of other things you could do more successfully.
So, your "slippery slope" is met with "whatever"; you have failed to convince me of the rightness of your argument.
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Frem, my friend, you constructed, for the most part, a sound argument in defense of our constitution; our way of life and what makes us tick. I commend you for your passionate defense.
First, to start off with, I'm a constitutionalist. I firmly believe in the driving force behind our imperfect union, the United States. Yes, imperfect but don't misunderstand, I believe our revolution is an ongoing phenomenon
that is envied and copied throughout the world, and is a work in progress.
I believe that the Constitution is damn near perfect and is a part of us, as much as the flag and apple pie. But I believe the founding fathers meant for it to grow, stretch and breathe along with the people of the country. To redress grievances, the freedoms of religion, speech and to assemble; and yes the right for the people to bear and keep arms are integral to our American fabric and should be respected and cherished. It's what makes us tick.
It was in response to the tyranny that was King George. The freedoms were born out of our fight to become a nation of free people, which included the strongly fought for, right to bear arms, in direct response to "hand over your guns." Everyone has the right to enjoy those freedoms. And you're right that a few have been cannibalized in our recent lifetime, again because a sign of the times (see Patriot Act). I cannot argue that this has not taken place. But I do not believe that the Constitution is wholeheartedly absolute.
The 9th Amendment states:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
(which supports the 1st Amendment's right to petition Government for redress of grievances).
I argue that there is no such thing as Big Government, because the government is us, the people. We elect people to represent us; to execute and manage our American way of life. Well, Big Government, as described by conservatives and the Tea Party as though it was a four-letter word. Yes, over the years (with the influence of BIG Money and corporate interests) that has changed. But the basic principle remains the same.
The killing of innocents with automatic assault weapons is infringing upon our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. People kill people, not guns. Correct. Why would anyone need a gun that can shoot hundreds of rounds within mere seconds unless they are going to war. That, I dare say, is a grievance that needs to be "redressed." I am not advocating the "government" confiscating all guns. But to reclassify weapons of mass destruction. Will that stop someone determined to kill whole masses of people - no.
But why should anyone feel the need to own a 50-caliber machine gun? If I were preparing for the economic collapse of our society, it may come in handy to protect me and mine. But do you expect that to happen in our lifetime? (apparently Mrs. Lanza did and looked where we are).
Freedoms come with responsibilities, respect and honor. I learned in grammar school many years ago about the freedom of speech and how it doesn't give a person the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Well, these lunatics running around with AK-47s are "yelling fire," is their freedom more important than you and your family's freedom to live?
SGG
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Byte, you misunderstood. The bias I was referringt o was your bias in support of Anthony, which has been consistent, not about guns.
As to pendulum...I BELIEVE in this thread I have been consistent. But it is always the case that if someone writes something I find logical and/or compliment-worthy, I say so. When I disagree with someone, I also say so. I don't pick and choose my responses (with a few exceptions) depending on how I feel about the person--hell, I've complimented Rap and others who despise me when they've said something I find worth applauding. I've said positive things about some of your posts, negative things about others. It's not about a pendulum, and that's all I'm going to say with regard to this. I'm not about to get into a 'back-and-forth'; been there, done that.
Cav, I read your post and it came across AS IF social change resulted in laws, all the time, and never that laws resulted in social change. Your statements like Quote:
I guess it's convenient. I guess it simplifies things so they don't have to focus on reality too hard.
"If only we had the right laws in place, America would be a paradise on Earth!"
was something I found rather offensive; I've never thought that and I think we've all been trying to deal with reality, rather than avoiding it.Quote:
Laws never bring about social change. No, they don't. Laws always come very late to that process. Laws are just what happens at the point in the process of social change when somnambulant, affluent citizens actually take notice.
came across pretty strong, and seemed to be indicating that laws were irrelevant when it came to social change. I disagreed. I happen to think sometimes laws are passed which go AGAINST social change...especially some that Republicans have passed in the past few years. I agree that a lot of the time, laws follow social change, but not always, and you seemed to be putting the whole problem on the government not being trustworthy. I don't think that's the answer; if anything, I think it's the way our society has evolved which is causing people to "act out", not the actions of the government. That was my point. And yes, this has been a very weird thread, one reason I've not been very involved in it for some time now. It seems to me like the same arguments keep being made over and over, and getting nowhere.
Anthony:Quote:
In claiming to desire the outlaw of semiautomatic weapons, you are essentially calling for a return to the weapons technology of the late 19th century, post-civil war era.
That statement is so far outside reality that I shouldn't even respond. Obviously there are many, MANY changes that have been made to weapons technology since then, I don't know how you can say that. It's an absurd statement and again, over the top when it comes to discussing the issue at hand.
Frem:Quote:
I am also perplexed at your own reaction to say, the notion of banning folks who suffer from any kind of mental illness from this right, suddenly it became all sorts of personal, yes ?
Think about that one for a minute, and you might understand my ire.
The difference between keeping a national registration for firearms and a national registry of the mentally ill is, to me, pretty big. The former would help the police deal with crime, and MANY guns cause crime; the latter would only serve to make fewer people seek mental-health services and would further stigmatize a section of the population, VERY FEW of which commit crimes. We'll have to agree to disagree; it comes down to my view that the idea that the government could or would even TRY to confiscate people's guns is absurd and in my opinion an unjustified paranoia. We'll just have to agree to disagree whether it's an unjustified paranoia and let it go at that; all the aspects of our government trying to confiscate everyone'
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
We'll have to agree to disagree; it comes down to my view that the idea that the government could or would even TRY to confiscate people's guns is absurd and in my opinion an unjustified paranoia. We'll just have to agree to disagree whether it's an unjustified paranoia and let it go at that; all the aspects of our government trying to confiscate everyone's guns are so numerous and so absurd, to me, that it's not the basis for a rational argument.
Unfortunately Reality trumps your Viewpoint.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-bre
d-defian/print
Quote:
Maybe gun owners are getting more ornery as time goes on. Or perhaps they’re just getting more distrustful of the authorities. In fact, American gun owners may have good reason to be skeptical of common assurances that registration records won’t ever be used for anything more than tracking lost and stolen weapons. In New York City, the center of agitation for tighter U.S. gun laws, the registration system for long guns such as rifles and shotguns, established in 1967, was used in the 1990s to confiscate previously lawful semiautomatic rifles.
California state officials pulled a similar stunt, though with a shorter grace period. After the registration of so-called “assault weapons” subsequent to the passage of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989, Attorney General Dan Lungren reversed official position in 1997 to declare one of the rifles considered legal and subject to registration just a few years earlier—the SKS Sporter—to be illegal. Owners who had complied with the law were forced to surrender their weapons or transfer them out of state.
And then there was Katrina, you wanna try and tell me that didn't happen ?
Do we NOT already have enough evidence of what happens when the Gov starts compiling "lists" of people, really ?
It's one thing to talk about stuff in theory, yet another to speak of it having witnessed it being done, and then having people who ALSO SAW IT try to tell you that doesn't happen, never happened, cannot happen.
Sure, okay, and we've always been at war with Eurasia, right ?
Quote:
Mostly I was angry at you calling me and others liars, etc., which to me is something I don't expect from you and which offends me personally. Additionally, there is a VAST difference between rational people trying to debate an issue and the kind of name-calling you hurled at me as well as others.
Quid Pro Quo - you and others have PRETENDED to be rational, when in fact the tenuous and unsupportable so-called "logic" you ascribe to borders on, if not actually involves, downright magical-thinking, and I am supposed to accept this as reasonable debate ?
No more so than I would accept it from Rappy or Zero!
Also, overall: Rights are not GRANTED by Government, they are NOT handed down upon us by the would-be masters, they exist, have always existed, as a consequence of being a human being.
That document, The Constitution, and more specifically the Bill of Rights, is a ROADBLOCK, an official and resounding "No!" to the encroachments EVERY political power of any kind no matter what one calls it, begins to engage in prior to enslaving or massacring those within its power.
See, lest one forget - I do have a moral obligation here.
Quote:
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
You want to CHANGE the Constitution to allow for those infringements, you AMEND the document, as is right and proper, you DO NOT simply ignore it and pass laws anyway, or abuse the legal system to hedge in rights that "sha
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Quote:
Anthony:
Quote:
In claiming to desire the outlaw of semiautomatic weapons, you are essentially calling for a return to the weapons technology of the late 19th century, post-civil war era.
That statement is so far outside reality that I shouldn't even respond. Obviously there are many, MANY changes that have been made to weapons technology since then, I don't know how you can say that. It's an absurd statement and again, over the top when it comes to discussing the issue at hand.
Hello Niki,
Exactly how is it absurd or over-the-top? This is what you called for. If you eliminate semiautomatic weapons you are left with revolvers, break-open actions, lever-actions, bolt-actions, and pump-action firearms. Which is, you know, what we had in the post civil war era in the latter part of the 19th century.
--Anthony
Note to Self:
Raptor - woman testifying about birth control is a slut (the term applies.)
Context: http://tinyurl.com/d6ozfej
Six - Wow, isn't Niki quite the CUNT? And, yes, I spell that in all caps....
http://tinyurl.com/bdjgbpe
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.
Context: http://tinyurl.com/afve3r9
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -T. S. Szasz
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Quote:Hey Niki,
Originally posted by Niki2:
Cav, I read your post and it came across AS IF social change resulted in laws, all the time, and never that laws resulted in social change. Your statements likeQuote:
I guess it's convenient. I guess it simplifies things so they don't have to focus on reality too hard.
"If only we had the right laws in place, America would be a paradise on Earth!"
was something I found rather offensive; I've never thought that and I think we've all been trying to deal with reality, rather than avoiding it.Quote:
Laws never bring about social change. No, they don't. Laws always come very late to that process. Laws are just what happens at the point in the process of social change when somnambulant, affluent citizens actually take notice.
came across pretty strong, and seemed to be indicating that laws were irrelevant when it came to social change. I disagreed. I happen to think sometimes laws are passed which go AGAINST social change...especially some that Republicans have passed in the past few years. I agree that a lot of the time, laws follow social change, but not always, and you seemed to be putting the whole problem on the government not being trustworthy. I don't think that's the answer; if anything, I think it's the way our society has evolved which is causing people to "act out", not the actions of the government. That was my point.
I kinda have to rely on people presuming a benevolent/reasoned context for what I say (which is different from presuming that everything I say is itself benevolent/reasoned--I am not perfect). I try to do the same for others. In most cases I find it's not that hard. When I can't do that, I do my best to focus on the specifics of what a person said and explain to the best of my ability how what they said doesn't make sense to me. This gets me into trouble on the internet because the moment people get angry they tend to drop context and turn you into whatever dragon they're imagining needs slaying at that moment. And similarly, when I do try to specify what I think is wrong with what they've said, folk all too often take it as a simple, blanket personal attack on them (I have my fair share of dragons that need slaying but in that case I try to generalize and distinguish my dragon from any individual person--with varying degrees of success). If I didn't presume that folk would take my established context into account (reasonable/benevolent/empathetic), I could end up writing books on these topics to cover all the context. And in reality, I would end up not writing anything.
It's keenly frustrating. So when Magons comes along and condemns my post as the most hopeless and defeatist post she's read, it's fucking depressing! Do you know me as a hopeless person? Do you know me as defeatist??? And yet that's what I get, because Magons wasn't willing to stretch and try to imagine how my comments might be reasonable and hopeful within my context.
Woulda been different if Magons talked about how what I said made her feel hopeless and how she was unable to see hope in what I was saying because...etc., etc. self disclosure, etc., (I'd have been very interested in such a post) but she didn't do that. She dumped on me.
Back to the topic at hand: I do, fundamentally, believe that passing laws at this point will do nothing to curb mass murder in this country. That seems to me to be self-evident to anyone who looks at the problem realistically. Such laws would be nothing but theatre. Exactly the way TSA officers groping 5 year olds is theatre and does nothing whatsoever to curb terrorism. Quite the contrary, it erodes the public's feeling of safety and certainly damages the public's trust in authority generally. Or, worse, it serves to further anesthetize the public to government intrusion and invasion of pr
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Hello everyone. I can't remember if tasers were mentioned in this thread as being non-lethal or not. They, I think usually are but they can also be lethal. Case in point a man arriving from Poland a couple of years ago into Canada was killed by being tasered. He didn't understand english and was getting frustrated with security. No translator was sent for or his mother who was waiting for him at the airport where he got off his plane. Security tasered him and he died. So not completely none lethal.
Hello,
Tasers are properly referred to as 'less-lethal' and are good alternatives to being shot with a slug of lead.
They are not solutions to the problem of 'not wanting to be bothered' which is, unfortunately, how they are often used by authorities.
--Anthony
Note to Self:
Raptor - woman testifying about birth control is a slut (the term applies.)
Context: http://tinyurl.com/d6ozfej
Six - Wow, isn't Niki quite the CUNT? And, yes, I spell that in all caps....
http://tinyurl.com/bdjgbpe
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.
Context: http://tinyurl.com/afve3r9
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -T. S. Szasz
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